Page 21 of Duncan

“Stay back, eejit,” he said.

He had to be Fae, Duxor thought. “The world here, ’tis overrun with mortals. Give me two, and I shall permit you live.”

“Touch even one of them, and I’ll flatten you like a flounder,” the old man warned.

Duxor eyed the hanging water, and then turned and dove off the dock. He watched through the water as the wave came back down to crash into the sea. The displacement sent a shockwave that buffeted him back into a current that twisted around him like a giant invisible serpent. By the time he wriggled free and surfaced, the old man and his crew had weighed anchor, and now sailed toward the north horizon.

“Selfish bastart,” he muttered. Why should a powerful being like him protect the likes of landcrawlers? Duxor would never understand the Fae.

That left bargaining again with Derdrui, who had hinted that she would provide him with shifters to transform if he would first lead her to Caladh and the MacMar. He had told her he would think on it, but he suspected the moment he gave the enchantress what she wanted she would no longer have any obligation to fulfill her end of the bargain.

No, Duxor decided, he would have to parlay directly with the shifters himself. If they agreed to be changed, he could add them to his army. Once he had enough transformed to challenge Jamaran and the garrison, he could then lead an attack on the Selseus settlement. While his creatures tore apart Merrick’s warriors, he would kill the king himself, and take the crown and the throne. By doing so Duxor would have absolute power over his people, and would end the foolish truce they had struck with the clan. Whatever mortal females they desired would be theirs again, even those already claimed and wed to the MacMar. As far as he was concerned, Derdrui could spend eternity searching the mortal realm for Caladh.

You cannae deceive the enchantress, master.

The mocking thought that came through his mind made him dive and swim down to confront Fiacail, who hovered in her shark form just on the edge of the shallows. She smelled of changed blood and death, but he saw no signs she had fought or been wounded.

How can you hear my thoughts? he demanded.

She ducked her wedge-shaped head. Mayhap you left your mind unguarded, master. Only ken that if I may read your thoughts, so shall Derdrui.

I dinnae wish be slain by that Fae hoor. Attend me. He gestured for her to come closer, and when she did he seized her neck and dug his fingers into her gill slits. Reckon you the betrayal of he who saved you a better notion than the loyalty you vowed me, you hideous slut?

Fiacail bared her jagged teeth in a caricature of a human smile. The enchantress meant to end me. You gave me new life. What think you, my beloved master?

Duxor could only sense the flat coldness that had replaced her mortal emotions since he’d transformed her dying body into one of his creatures. Bid the Cait Sith meet with me. Speak with that fat, ugly one who leads them, he told her. Say I shall await her near Insii Orc.

You intend betray my sisters and the enchantress. The shark shifter changed into her mortal form, and grinned with human teeth at him. I hear your every thought, you see. So do the others.

More of his creatures swam up behind Fiacail and moved to flank her, until dozens hovered in the water, each one staring at him as if he were prey instead of their creator and master.

I gave you life, Duxor thought to them. You pledged serve me forever.

A few lunged forward as if to attack him, but as Fiacail glanced at them they subsided. She then regarded him with those flat, dead eyes.

We never asked you save us. You forced our vows on us. Since then you’ve only used us like weapons. Never did you protect us. She shifted into her pure shark form. For the life you gave us, we shall spare yours. Only go.

Derdrui shall surely end you. He imagined the shifter’s head hanging from the railing of the merchant trader the Cait Sith sailed. And I shallnae save you again.

Fiacail swam right up to him, and snapped her teeth in his face, making him recoil and dart away. As he swam for the depths, he heard her laughing in his head.

DUNCAN FINISHED EXAMINING one of the clan’s gardeners, who had a fiery, painful rash on his torso. The condition wasn’t life-threatening, but he always kept watch for signs of disease among the clan’s vassals. Plague, which had never yet reached Caladh, could wipe out a mortal population in weeks.

“You say you didnae work bare-chested, Gus,” he said to the man as he went to his shelves and took down a jar of salve. “Your wife, did she change how she launders? Or did she serve you a dish you’ve never before tried?”

“No, Healer.” The gardener eased down his tunic. “’Twas a tingling and burning for days I suffered before the rash came. My brother reckoned ’twas morphew, and told me buy a charm from Mistress Angalan.”

“Her charms won’t heal you.” He knew Gus to be in his sixties, but he had not been born on Caladh. He and his brother had been shipwrecked on the island as young men. “In your boyhood on the mainland, had you the itching pox?”

“Aye, all over me.” Gus grimaced. “The sores came out even inside my mouth.”

That told Duncan the origin of the man’s rash. He carefully spread the salve over the spots, but didn’t bandage it.

“The itching pox stays in your body after you heal, and returns as a rash much later as you age. You must take cool baths every day now and wear clean, loose tunics of soft linen.” The sound of a woman shouting made him glance through the gates, where he saw Caroline carrying another lady over her shoulder and running toward the portcullis. “’Twould seem I’ve another I should attend. Come see me again after the evening meal, Gus.”

Duncan picked up his bag and hurried toward the gate, reaching it in time to see that the diver carried over her shoulder Nicole’s limp body. On the back of the unconscious woman’s gown bloodstains bloomed. “What happened?”

“She passed out after touching a spooked work horse with a long, nasty cut on its back. I’ve never seen anyone calm an animal so quickly.” Caroline knelt down with him before she eased her into his arms. “Looks like she can absorb injuries the way you do pain.”